The Debrief, 4/8/14

This week on the Debrief, we update you on the aftermaths of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, as well as tell you about the 20th anniversary of Rwanda’s genocide, protests in China over chemical refineries, HIV policy changes in Taiwan, and a US Senate hearing on US-Taiwan relations:

On April 6th, 1994, Rwanda was plagued by one of the most efficient genocides in the 20th century. In the following 100 days, the country, which is about the size of Maryland, lost almost a million people. They were killed by the hands of their neighbors, their own country, while the international community remained mostly silent…

The student occupation of Taiwan’s parliament is scheduled to come to an end on this Thursday April 10, after three and a half weeks of putting most of the nation’s business on hold and igniting an entire generation of Taiwanese people to political awareness. The protests, dubbed the Sunflower Movement, was sparked by controversy over the Cross Straits Services Trade Agreement and procedural issues during its legislative review…

While hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Taipei on March 30, across the Strait another protest was happening, in the city of Maoming in Guangdong Province. The protest was over the planned construction of a paraxyline (PX) plant…

On Thursday, the Executive Yuan announced that it has proposed amendments to existing laws that will allow HIV positive foreign workers to stay in Taiwan instead of facing deportation. However, they will have to pay for their own treatment costs…

On Thursday April 3rd, the Senate’s Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs held a hearing to evaluate US policy on Taiwan, to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979…

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